Volume 1

History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster / By Edward Baines ... The biographical department by W.R. Whatton.

  • Edward Baines
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster / By Edward Baines ... The biographical department by W.R. Whatton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    661/672 page 617
    Nor was the situation of the witch more enviable than that of the individuals. or the families over which she exerted her influence. Linked’by a species of infernal compact; to an imaginary imp, she was shunned as a common pest, or caressed only on the principle, that certain of the Indian tribes pay homage to the devil. ‘The reputed witches themselves were frequently disowned by their families, feared and detested by their neighbours, and hunted by the dogs as pernicious monsters. When in confinement, they were cast into the ponds, by way of trial; punctured by bodkins, to discover their imp-marks ; subjected to deprivation of food, and kept in perpetual motion, till confessions were obtained from a distracted mind, On their trials, they were listened to with incredulity and horror ; and consigned to the gallows with as little pity as the basest of malefactors.. Their imaginary crimes created a thirst for their blood; and people in all stations, from the highest to the lowest, attended the trials at Lancaster, as we have seen from Mr. Potts’ record of the criminal proceedings there, with an intensity of interest that their mischievous powers, now divested of their sting, so naturally excited. It is quaintly said, that witchcraft and kingcraft in England came in with ‘the Stuarts, and went out with them: This, however, is not true; the doctrine: of necromancy was in universal belief in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, and’ there ;was not, perhaps, a man in Lancashire, nor indeed in any part of England at that period, who doubted its existence ; and.as to kingcraft, the Tudors: understood and practised that art quite as well‘as the Stuarts, though they might: insist less upon the abstract principle of the “ divine right of kings.” The belief in witchcraft and demoniacal possession was confined to ‘no particular sect or persuasion ; the Roman Catholics,* the members of the established Church of England, the Presbyterians, and’ Independents, and eventhe Methodists, though a sect of more recent’ standing, have all fallen into this delusion; and yet each deno- wilful fraud. Since the light of general knowledge has chased. away the mists of so many thresholds ornamented with this counter-charm. Mr. Roby, in his “ Traditions: of Lanca- shire,” has treated the subject with great vivacity and spirit; and:his legendary tales serve to convey to the mind a vivid impression of the effects of the popular superstition in other times. * See the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII. to the inquisitors of Almain, empowering them to detect and burn witches. The Romish church ‘appointed penances: for converted witches; and Cranmer, the Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, in his articles of visitation, directs his clergy, in 1549, to inquire after any persons that use “charms, sorcery, enchantments, witchcraft, soothsaying, or any like craft, invented by the devil;” which instructions were renewed: in Elizabeth’s reign, with the addition, “ especially in time of women’s travail.” Richard Baxter, a divine in deserved estimation amongst the nonconformists, was a firm believer in the possession and dispossession of devils, and his “ World of Spirits” abounds with proofs of his firm conviction of the reality of this popular delusion. VOL. I. 4K CHAP. XIV, General belief in witcheraft and in de- monology-
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